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Strengthen Standard Base Documentation from community talk
Adds three structural improvements to the Standard Base Documentation
pattern, informed by Fiji "FJ"'s talk "Docs that Invite Devs":
- New ARCHITECTURE.md section as a contributor-facing system map,
distinct from Document Architecture Decisions (ADRs). Addresses
the contributor hesitation of not knowing what is safe to touch.
- New "How to know your docs are working" check, listing the five
questions a newcomer should be able to answer from a quick scan.
- Sharper Getting Started guidance in the README template:
copy-pasteable steps, expected outputs, and a troubleshooting
subsection.
Also adds the talk under Known Instances, labeled as a community
talk to distinguish it from the existing organizational adoptions.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
For projects of non-trivial size, consider providing a separate `ARCHITECTURE.md` document. Where the `README.md` orients *users*, an `ARCHITECTURE.md` orients potential *contributors* so they know where to make a change and what they might break. This is distinct from Architecture Decision Records (see [Document Architecture Decisions](../1-initial/document-architecture-decisions.md)), which capture *decisions over time*; `ARCHITECTURE.md` is a current-state map of the system aimed at making contribution feel safe.
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Typically it should cover:
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* A high-level overview of the project's main components and the boundaries between them.
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* Which module or directory owns which responsibility, and how the modules interact.
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* A handful of conventions or invariants a contributor should know before changing code (e.g. "all public APIs live in the `api/` package", "anything in `core/` requires a corresponding test").
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* A pointer to where deeper design rationale lives, if Architecture Decision Records or design docs exist.
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Without this kind of map, would-be contributors often hesitate not because they lack skill, but because they cannot tell which parts of the system are safe to touch.
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### COMMUNICATION.md
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Create a separate `COMMUNICATION.md` document. Link this document to your `README.md` so comprehensive contact information can be provided and not take up the extra space in your README. This document should answer frequently
@@ -120,6 +133,18 @@ In addition to that, this pattern comes with three very basic templates to get y
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started right away: [README-template.md](templates/README-template.md),
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[CONTRIBUTING-template.md](templates/CONTRIBUTING-template.md), and [COMMUNICATION-template.md](templates/COMMUNICATION-template.md).
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### How to know your docs are working
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A practical check: a newcomer scanning your project for a few minutes — without asking anyone — should be able to answer these five questions:
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1. What is this project?
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2. Where do I start as a user?
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3. How does it work at a high level?
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4. If I want to help, where do I begin?
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5. If I make a contribution, what happens next?
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If any of these are hard to find from a quick scan of your docs, decide which file should answer it and add a short, prominent entry there. Potential contributors typically scan rather than read end-to-end, and many leave silently when these questions are not quickly answered.
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## Resulting Context
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* The time for contributors to get up to speed is significantly reduced.
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***Analog Devices Inc.**
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***Airbus**
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***Siemens** automatically creates a checklist issue for every new InnerSource project to make maintainers aware of mandatory requirements (e.g. business approval, license & copyright, export control, contributing guidelines, maintainer maturity) as well as best practices (e.g. documentation as code, semantic versioning, continuous integration/deployment).
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***Community talk** - Fiji "FJ", *Docs that Invite Devs*, articulates why InnerSource docs frequently fail to convert readers into contributors and proposes a README / Getting Started / Architecture / CONTRIBUTING blueprint along with a "5 questions in 5 minutes" usability check ([YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay_ktbK9lhs)).
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## Getting Started
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This section should contain brief documentation written for first time users on
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how to get started using the project. Further more detailed documentation can be
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linked to from here.
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This section should get first-time users running in minutes. To reduce friction:
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* Make setup steps copy-pasteable. A reader should be able to copy a command and run it without rewriting it.
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* State the *expected output* of each step so readers know they are on track.
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* Include a short "Common problems" or "Troubleshooting" subsection covering the errors past first-timers have hit, so readers can resolve issues without leaving the documentation.
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Further more detailed documentation can be linked to from here.
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